1. Field of the Invention
An apparatus consistent with the present invention relates to a heating cooker and, more particularly, to a heating cooker equipped with a steam generating unit capable of supplying steam into a cooking chamber.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a heating cooker typically including a cooking chamber for receiving food to be cooked, and heating means for heating the food received in the cooking chamber, there are a microwave oven, an electric oven, and a gas oven.
In the microwave oven, microwaves generated from a magnetron are supplied into a cooking chamber so that food received in the cooking chamber is cooked by heat emitted therefrom by virtue of the microwaves applied thereto. In the electric oven or gas oven, heat generated in accordance with the operation of an electric heater or combustion of gas is applied to the interior of a cooking chamber defined in the oven, so that food received in the cooking chamber is cooked.
In such heating cookers, there is a drawback in that food being cooked may be excessively dried out because its moisture evaporates during the cooking process. In order to solve such a problem, active research has been made in the associated industrial field to provide a heating cooker equipped with a steam generating unit for supplying steam into a cooking chamber of the heating cooker, thereby being capable of preventing food, which is being cooked, from being dried while achieving an improvement in cooking effect. In an example of such a heating cooker, a water reservoir is provided at the bottom of a cooking chamber within the cooking chamber, and a heater is installed in the water reservoir. In this case, steam is generated as water contained in the water reservoir is heated by the heater.
However, this heating cooker has various problems. For example, it is inconvenient to use since the user must fill the water reservoir with water every time the heating cooker is to be used. Furthermore, there is a problem in terms of sanitary conditions because food solids or oil may be introduced into the water reservoir in the cooking process.
In addition, since the heater of the steam generating unit is maintained in a state of being dipped in water contained in the water reservoir, foreign matter may be attached to the inner surface of the water reservoir and the surface of the heater. For this reason, although the user has to perform a cleaning operation for periodically removing such foreign matter, it is impossible to simply perform the cleaning operation because it is difficult to separate the water reservoir and heater from the cooking chamber.